Founded in 1933,
Kidane Mehret cares
for 150 children from newborn to age 16

Mother Mary De Brincat

"Let the children come to me"

History

This home was founded around the year 1933 by a French Community. When these sisters left the country because of the war, Ma Soeur Marie Joseph Tasemma took over. She continued to work at the orphanage until she died on September 8th 1996 at the age of 94. Ma Soeur passed away to the Lord leaving 90 children aged between 4 and 18 years.

After the nun’s death, Cardinal Paulos Tsadua asked our Congregation, to take care of these children. The beginning was very difficult, but with God’s help who sowed in the hearts of many people the seed of generosity, this new home was built. It took us around three years to finish it and still there is always space for improvement.

The number of beneficiaries in our home at present is around 150 children. Their ages range from newly born babies up to 16 year olds.

Mission Statement

The Mission of Kidane Meheret Children’s home is to love, care, understand and educate children of different ages, tribes and religions. We base this on the words of Our Lord “Let the children come to me for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”.

Our Aims & Objectives

To lift the morale of the children

To give them a better upbringing in feeling and experiencing in a different form, family love and care

To attend to their health and nourishment

To better their education and so enhance that in the future they will be worthy citizens

Criteria

Abandoned children under 8 years of age

Street children under 8 years of age

Orphans of both parents under 8 years of age

Children of parents who are sick with HIV (Aids)

Prayer

Every day of the week the children get together and pray. We try to make them understand that first of all it is good to spend some time with the Lord and secondly, that in order to provide for their needs, we need help from donors and sponsors and so we need to pray to God, so that people around the world will continue to help us and other children on the streets. The most important thing is to thank God for everything we have.

Other Objectives

We know that children in an institution is considered an evil but even abandoning children on the streets is evil so we choose the better out of the two evils.

Another evil is to remove the children form their birth country and from their culture. However instead of leaving the children for their whole life in an institution, we prefer to offer them a family who is willing to offer them a future of love, care and education.

There are youngsters who for a number of reasons do not have the chance to go for adoption. We help these children to continue their education with the hope that most of them enter university to further their studies. This we do with the hope that one day they will have a better future. We try to find sponsors who are willing to help them to stand on their own feet. This they do by sending them a monthly allowance. We also teach them how to budget their money. We open for them bank accounts, which we take care of, until they finish the twelfth grade.

At present we have six young lads who left the home and are living on their own. We helped them furnish their rooms and we inform them that we are always here to help them with advice and to support them in their difficulties. This year five of them are joining Addis Ababa University. The other one is already attending college.